


Skate Free!

by Alemantele



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Rei is too cute, idk what i'm doing anymore, skating!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alemantele/pseuds/Alemantele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was only halfway into the lesson that another thought occurred to Rei—were the community pools closed that day? His eyes widened. They must’ve been, with snow still bombarding them outside. What was Haruka-senpai going to do now? </p><p>When winter comes, it's not exactly a surprise when Haru's eccentricities prove to be far more than what Rei had first thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skate Free!

**Author's Note:**

> Based off http://dyxfujoshi.tumblr.com/post/76707970513/by-30b-nimocco-via-twitter  
> Because I clearly have no shame. 
> 
> It's a skating!AU, what else is there to say? 
> 
> (Also Rei is smart and adorable but he is also extremely slow on the uptake at times)

When Rei woke up, his pipes were frozen almost solid. It wasn’t quite the first thing he had noticed—that had been the way his breath actually misted in the air where he breathed out. The cold had done well to shock the sleep out of his system. The very first thing Rei did after waking up was running to his bathroom to test the water. 

After a few twists of the knob, he decided that the plumbing system was probably dysfunctional. 

This wasn’t the way he wanted to spend his morning. He was still in his pajamas. With a yelp, Rei remembered just how cold the tiles under his bare feet were. He ran back into his bedroom and got dressed in record time, not even caring how dishevelled and not-beautiful he probably looked. A glance outside told him that it was snowing outside, with more snow than he cared for already piled on the ground. 

School probably wasn’t cancelled. School was never cancelled. 

Gritting his teeth, Rei pulled on the thickest winter jacket he owned and went to get food before leaving.  
Outside, the wind was relentless. If Rei had time, he could have calculated the angle and velocity of the gusts of sharp wintery wind and adjusted himself accordingly, but his brain was too busy shouting at him to get inside! Your face is freezing! to function properly. When Rei sighed, his breath puffed in the air. 

There were still plenty of students headed to school. Trust high school students to be the most resilient come nasty weather. The trees around the streets were frozen with ice as well. The sight was almost beautiful enough to marvel at, if it weren’t for the fact that if Rei didn’t get inside soon, he would mostly likely die from the cold. He wondered how long it would take for exposed skin to develop hypothermia. 

Making a mental note to memorize the symptoms of hypothermia later, Rei made it to the front gates in record time. He wasted no time at all in getting through the front doors. The blast of warmth in his face was quite welcome, despite the way he made his glasses fog up annoyingly. 

“Rei-chan!” Nagisa cried as soon as Rei walked into homeroom. The exuberant blond didn’t seem bothered by the weather. Instead, he was grinning as usual, his cheeks only slightly rosier than usual. 

Nagisa didn’t look bedraggled or dampened by the cold day, not like the other students. No, Nagisa only looked… well he only looked more beautiful than usual, but Rei didn’t let himself think that. 

He sat down in his seat, giving Nagisa a soft smile. “Good morning, Nagisa-kun.” 

Nagisa beamed. “Was your house really cold this morning too, Rei-chan?” he asked. 

Rei nodded. “Yes. It was extremely cold when I awoke. In fact, I discovered that my plumbing was down and that my thermostat is most likely broken as well.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose slightly. “It was quite frustrating if I’m to be honest.” 

“Uh huh,” Nagisa agreed. “My sisters are sick today too! Geez, this cold weather is really annoying, isn’t it?” 

Rei chuckled to himself. 

“Eeeh, what is it, Rei-chan?” Nagisa asked. “What’s so funny?” 

“Nothing, nothing,” Rei replied, waving away the shorter boy. “You just seem awfully excited for such a cold day.” 

Nagisa tilted his head slightly to the side. “I’m always excited when it’s winter time!” he exclaimed. “It might be super nasty but Ha—” he suddenly cut himself off, his eyes widening almost comically. “Ooh, Rei-chan doesn’t know yet!” he exclaimed. 

“I don’t know what?” Rei asked, his forehead creasing in concern. Was there yet another swim club secret he wasn’t privy to? What could be so special about the cold weather? He tried to mentally brush it off but there was that niggling doubt of being excluded that was coming back to the front of his mind. 

Nagisa only smiled secretly. “You’ll see eventually, Rei-chan!” he chirped, bouncing up and down in his seat. 

Rei narrowed his eyes questioningly. “Nagisa-kun, are you hiding something from me again?” 

He hadn’t meant for the question to be too defensive, but his emotions must’ve been showing on his face again, because Nagisa immediately backpedalled, rapidly talking in an almost panicked sounding voice. 

“Oh don’t worry, Rei-chan,” he was saying, “it’s not like I don’t want to tell you or anything… and besides, it’s not even that important…,” he trailed off slightly, his mouth set in a pout. “Just that it’s a surprise, see!” Nagisa finally said, grabbing onto Rei’s arm imploringly. “It’s super cool, don’t worry! Nothing for Rei-chan to worry about!” 

Nagisa’s smile was just endearing enough for Rei to mentally put aside his worries for now. “Then I suppose I will have to be patient,” Rei said, and this time there wasn’t as much disappointment in his voice. Knowing Nagisa, it would be something as silly as half-off on ice cream in the winter anyways.

“Yay!” Nagisa cheered. “We’re still meeting after school then, with the swim club! You’ll see what I mean then!” 

The pool had been long drained and cleared out, to Haruka’s dismay. What had Nagisa planned?  
Nevertheless, Rei agreed, before turning back to the front as the lesson was starting. Nagisa did the same as well, releasing his hold on Rei’s arm. 

It was only halfway into the lesson that another thought occurred to Rei—were the community pools closed that day? His eyes widened. They must’ve been, with snow still bombarding them outside. Haruka-senpai. Rei was no stranger to his senpai’s strange obsession with water. What was Haruka going to do now? 

The rest of the lesson passed in a blur. Lunch couldn’t have come sooner. As soon as the classes ended, Nagisa shouted that he was going to take care of something with the rest of the swim club so he would see Rei after school then, and Rei didn’t even notice beyond giving him a brief nod in his beeline to the library. There had to be a pool open somewhere near, right? 

The internet told him otherwise. Rei’s face grew steadily more and more dismayed as he realized that there would be no community pools available for the next few weeks, and that the swimming season was dwindling anyways come winter. And if his plumbing was this bad, then it would be similar across town. 

And that meant that Haruka couldn’t even soak in his bathtub. The ocean was far too cold to swim in this time of year too. 

Rei frowned. 

He wondered he if would have to help Makoto restrain Haruka from jumping into the cold water then—he certainly didn’t put it past his eccentric but talented senpai to forsake his own safety for simply being surrounded by water. 

Ah, and that reminded him—he still needed to learn the symptoms of hypothermia. With the seemingly cold winter about to settle upon them, it would probably come in handy yet. 

Rei settled down to memorize the list of symptoms for the rest of the lunch period, pausing occasionally to actually eat. 

\---

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. Nagisa had come back into the classroom with an excited grin on his face. “Don’t worry, Rei-chan!” he repeated himself. 

When classes ended, Nagisa grabbed Rei’s hand and began to drag him towards the swim club meeting room. Rei flushed, and tried to extract his hand from the shorter boy’s. “Nagisa-kun!” he exclaimed. “I can walk by myself!” 

“Eeeh,” Nagisa whined, “but you have to hurry!” 

Rei nodded, and Nagisa pouted before dropping his hand. The blond boy wasted no time in sprinting off as soon as he let go, and Rei was forced to run after him. 

They arrived at the swim club room almost together—Nagisa beaming and Rei scowling. 

The irate expression melted off his face as soon as he saw Makoto standing there though. Sans Haruka. 

“Makoto-senpai!” Rei cried immediately. “Where’s Haruka-senpai? Is he looking for somewhere to swim? My pipes were frozen this morning so I thought that his were too!” He gestured towards the empty pool. “He can’t have gone in the pool, obviously, so I searched up some community pools and they were all closed. The only thing that’s open today is that pond for outdoors skating, but you can’t swim in that.” 

Makoto still hadn’t responded. 

Rei’s concern was growing by the second. “Do you think he’s going to try and jump into the ocean or something? If you ever need my help to pull him back don’t hesitate to ask!” 

Nagisa was still grinning gleefully. Rei wondered just what was so funny about the entire situation. Did they not realize that hypothermia was a serious problem? He had spent the entire lunch period reading up about it—it certainly didn’t sound very pleasant to have your extremities freeze off one by one and whoever suffered it certainly wouldn’t be very beautiful anymore. “Can you even swim without your toes?” he muttered to himself, thinking aloud. 

Makoto’s eyes widened. “Without your toes?” he asked incredulously. 

“Yes!” Rei exclaimed, throwing his arms up. “Hypothermia is very serious! We need to stop Haruka-senpai from going into the ocean.” 

There was a soft sigh, and Rei realized it came from Makoto. Obviously the older student was tired of pulling Haruka out of these situations time and time again. Rei made a vow to himself to help out more when he could. He was about to open his mouth to offer his help again when Makoto spoke, “You don’t have to worry, Rei.” 

Huh? 

Makoto laughed slightly at what must’ve been a confused look on Rei’s face. “You don’t have to worry about Haru jumping into the ocean,” he said, before sighing again. “Haru doesn’t swim in the winter.” 

Rei would’ve believed you if you told him that chickens could lay golden eggs or Nagisa really would do half the things he had said he would or the sky was falling down as they spoke before he believed that Haruka didn’t swim for a long period of time. Voluntarily. “How’d you convince him not to?” he asked incredulously. He hadn’t thought it was possible, but Makoto was a miracle worker it seemed. 

“I didn’t convince him,” Makoto said, this time rolling his eyes. The older student shot a look at Nagisa. “You didn’t tell him?” 

Nagisa shook his head rapidly. “Nooo, I didn’t. I wanted to surprise Rei-chan!” 

Rei was getting frustrated now. “Surprise me with what?” he burst out. “Nagisa-kun, you said you’d explain now!” 

Nagisa nodded. “Yeah! That’s what we’re going to do now! Actually it’s good that you searched up that skating pond, cuz that’s where we’re going now!” 

“Eh?” 

“We’re going to the skating pond!” 

Rei scratched his head. “Is… Haruka-senpai there?” 

Makoto nodded. “Haru’s probably down there already.” 

“Eh!” Rei exclaimed. “Is he going to try and swim there? Or is he using the water or something?” 

Makoto shook his head. “I almost wish sometimes,” he muttered to himself. 

“What do you—” 

“You’ll see!” Nagisa exclaimed, interrupting Rei’s question. “When we go to the rink!” 

Rei was getting more and more confused by the second, but he decided to follow the two other swim club members. Hopefully he would get some answers at the skating rink. 

They got there relatively quickly for walking, especially from the school. Nagisa was chattering away all the while, and Rei tried to pay attention, but he was too busy thinking about what he would find at the rink. Haruka’s obsession wouldn’t be strong enough that he’d try to get at the water below ice, would he? 

Nagisa paused outside the door to the facility. Rei could see the skating rink spanning out behind the small building. There weren’t many people, probably because the weather was still atrocious. “Now wait here, Rei-chan,” Nagisa said before marching inside the facility. 

Rei shot Makoto a questioning look. 

“It’s probably best to just go along with what Nagisa says,” the older student replied. 

Rei shrugged and had to concede the point. The enthusiasm Nagisa had when on a mission was only second to Haruka’s to water. 

A few minutes later, the blond boy came out with something in his hands. To Rei’s dismay, it was a pair of skates. 

He probably shouldn’t have expected anything else—they had been coming to a skating rink after all. Still, Rei hadn’t skated since he was six years old. He mentally went through coefficients of friction and momentum and something about centripetal force that had to do with skating. It had been forever since he had brushed up on his skating theory. He mentally put that on the ever growing to-do list he had. 

Rei hoped that Nagisa didn’t expect too much out of him on the ice. 

“Come on, Rei-chan!” Nagisa cried, gesturing towards the small building. 

Rei sighed before he and Makoto walked in after Nagisa and they all made their way to the change rooms. Inside, Makoto and Nagisa brought out the skates that they apparently already had and Nagisa handed Rei the borrowed pair from the facility. Rei wondered how Nagisa knew his shoe size. 

The two other swim club members laced up their skates with a startling accuracy—Nagisa in figure skates and Makoto in hockey skates. 

Rei looked at the pair of figure skates in his hands and wondered how he was supposed to put them on. He knew that they were supposed to be tight, theoretically, but how was he supposed to lace it up to the optimal efficiency? 

“Rei-chan, do you know how?” Nagisa asked after a few minutes. 

He briefly considered lying, but then realized that was would be counterproductive. Sheepishly, Rei shook his head. 

Nagisa beamed. “I’ll help you!” he said, scooting over to kneel down. “Give me your feet!” 

Flushing, Rei did as he was told. Soon, Nagisa had laced the skates up with strength that Rei hadn’t thought the smaller boy would possess. Once the skates were laced on, Nagisa jumped to his feet and pulled Rei up. 

He didn’t wobble. 

Well. He didn’t wobble that much. 

Nagisa giggled and helped Rei outside to the rink. Makoto followed, still looking slightly exasperated at the entire situation. Once they were outside, Rei’s scarf blew into his face and he spent two minutes trying to get it to stay tucked into his shirt. 

He blinked. 

Haruka was already waiting for them, black figure skates on his feet. He stared at them impassively. (It was a slightly inappropriate thought, but Rei found it almost strange to see him so bundled up.)

“Haru-chan!” Nagisa cried, waving. He stepped onto the ice, gliding across with an ease that Rei envied. 

Haruka nodded his head slightly. “You’re late,” he said, when Makoto got on the ice too to join them. 

Makoto shrugged. “We were getting Rei some skates,” he said. 

Rei still hadn’t stepped onto the ice, feeling far too afraid of falling and making a fool of himself to continue. Nagisa was still waving. 

With an impassive hum, Haruka turned back to stare across the pond. 

“Reeei-chan,” Nagisa called. “Come on the ice!” 

Rei frowned, and then realized that he would have to do it eventually. He slowly stepped onto the rink. He half crouched, trying to keep his centre of balance low. Holding out his arms, he took an experimental step forward and was shocked when he didn’t fall. This wasn’t so bad! He knew theoretically that he had to push off with one foot now while keeping his balance. 

It couldn’t be that bad, could it? 

He just had to angle himself just so, and make it so that his centre of balance was over his supporting leg! 

Rei braced himself, and pushed. 

The next thing he knew he was sitting on the ice with a bump forming on his head and Nagisa was leaning down to help him up. The younger boy was laughing all the while. 

“Wow, Rei-chan,” he said, “we really need to teach you how to skate before we start the skating club!” 

Ow. His head hurt. Turns out it was that hard after all. Ow. 

What was that Nagisa had said again…? It took Rei a while to register the words. “Wait, skating club?” he asked incredulously. 

Nagisa nodded. “Yeah! We don’t swim in the winter, see. We skate instead!” He flicked Rei slightly in the side. “That’s the surprise! Isn’t it cool?” 

“But…,” Rei trailed off, frowning despondently, “I don’t know how to skate.” 

Nagisa shrugged. “That’s okay! We’ll teach you.” 

Rei was still confused, when he realized something. Haruka supposedly didn’t swim in the winter. Did that meant that he...skated? 

When Rei turned to look, Haruka was doing warmup stretches on the ice, looking like he belonged on the rink just as well as he did in the water. 

His eyes widened. “Haruka-senpai!” he called. 

Haruka turned to look at him, Rei pushed his glasses up slightly to make sure they weren’t still askew from his earlier fall. “Does this mean you skate competitively too?” he asked excitedly. 

Haruka turned back to his stretches, seemingly ignoring Rei. Was Haruka just going to ignore him? 

Nagisa had fallen quiet by his side, and Rei realized he was still sitting on the ice.

Rei was about to attempt to get up again when Haruka suddenly began to unbutton his winter jacket.  
Was this all an elaborate prank and he really was going to try and swim in the skating rink? Rei watched with his mouth slightly agape. (A small part of him recognized how familiar Haruka’s act of stripping was, and Rei pushed that away before he started to get noticeably red again.) Haruka slowly handed Makoto the coat and began taking off the jacket on the inside as well. 

Makoto only sighed slightly as if he were as used to this as the constant stripping for swimming, and skated to the side of the rink to toss the jackets on top of Haruka’s sports bag. 

Rei’s eyes widened further when he realized that Haruka wasn’t quite wearing a swimming suit underneath. 

Haruka-senpai had taken off his jacket to reveal a shimmery, blue, and see through loose shirt. There were sparkles. 

It was undeniably the most beautiful thing Rei had seen all day. 

With a flourish, Haruka pushed off with one foot and proceeded to skate circles around the rink, going faster than Rei could even run most of the time. Rei wondered if he could ever skate as well as that. 

Haruka then did three jump-twirls in the air in a row, and Rei’s jaw dropped open. 

Even if he had all the theory in the world, he probably wouldn’t be able to move as beautifully as that. Haruka’s shirt billowed as he moved, blending in perfectly with the pure white ice and snow all around him. 

Rei stared, hearing Nagisa’s delighted giggles as Haruka spun. 

After a few more spins and laps, including this one move where his body was practically perpendicular to the ice that Rei still couldn’t wrap his mind around, Haruka made his way back to where Rei was still sitting on the ice, his skates sending up a spray of ice shavings as he rapidly stopped. He stared down at Rei slightly, and Rei was glad to see that there was a smile on his face instead of some sort of mocking disdain like Rei had secretly expected. 

“I don’t skate competitively,” Haruka said. 

Rei was about to open his mouth to protest because Haruka was so talented and it would be such a shame to waste that, but he still hadn’t manage to get his brain to work well enough to talk yet after that spectacular display. 

Haruka’s smile widened, almost a smirk. “I only skate free.”


End file.
